Crutch
by xDarkWingx
Summary: Based on episode 3 .. Oneshot .. Aang is faced with the reality of this new, destructive age


**((Just a little pointless drabble to keep the creative juices flowing. :3 I got the first season of Avatar for Christmas and just finished watching the first DVD. I had never seen episodes 1 through 4 before! D: But now I have, hurhur. X3**

**This is based on episooooode. . . 3, the Southern Air Temple. I may be wrong; I watched the episode yesterday and was too lazy to look and see if everything here is spot-on. I think it's close enough that no one has a reason to eat me...(?) I know, I know, Aang's a carefree little kid-o, but come on, finding the Southern Air Temple, his HOME, completely abandoned HAS to hurt...**

**Disclaimer: Avatar: The Last Airbender and everything about it does not belong to me...))**

Holding up a carefree and responsive demeanor had proved to be surprisingly easy. It was all like playing games as a child, pretending to be who you're not. But inside he was being picked away at slowly but surely. He didn't show it, because that flicker of hope, that distant fluttering flame, was still strong.

So what the Southern Air Temple was completely abandoned, it's once majestic edifices worn with age and disuse? So what the mammoth flying bison and chattering little flying lemurs who once populated the sky and crowded the ground were no where to be seen? So what there wasn't a singly solitary soul in the entire prefecture that was once prosperous with bald monks bending air with graceful movements of their arms?

That didn't mean anything. Being alive didn't mean an eternal solitude in the high mountains. The monks could have easily hopped a ride on a flying bison to an Earth Kingdom town, or a longer trip to the Southern Water Tribe, found surprising peace in the Fire Nation, or even a new mountain top with more space for fun; all possible alternatives to an unmerciful destruction. Besides, you _needed_ a flying bison to reach the Temple in the first place; could you imagine a bunch of Fire Nation soldiers scaling the mountain in their flamboyant uniforms? It was more comical then sane, and Aang couldn't help but laugh away the silly fears as he tossed an air-ball towards Sokka, positively beaming with delight as it ricocheted off the poles, collided with the unprepared Water Tribe warrior and sent him sprawling.

There were no signs of a struggle, no damage other than the slow strain of Father Time, it was as though the monks just up and left one day without a word. Truly, his fears and the ones that Katara kept trying to brace him for were undue. The anxiety was steadily replaced by awe as the trio explored the Temple, seeing the many, many past lives of the Avatar. Here, Aang felt at ease among familiar faces that his own set of eyes had never seen before. A subconscious knowledge awakened in him, and the world around him seemed more real.

They were distracted only by a small flying lemur; the only straggler that missed the mass exodus to wherever the Air Benders went. And it was a mad race to catch the lemur before Sokka turned it into stew. It was all a game; everything was a game. The gravity of silence in the place was replaced by Aang's laughter, Sokka's cries of distress, and the poor lemur's chattering of protest as they tore across the abandoned Temple.

All of that changed when he found one area littered with Fire Nation corpses, destruction apparent. There _was_ a struggle. Aang's eyes traveled across the massacre, the leaden feeling of death creeping into his body and sending shivers down his spine. But what truly shook him, what pushed him over the edge, what convinced him that the Air Benders really were no more, was the sight of his beloved master, his greatest mentor and friend, no more than a worn mass of bones and tattered clothing, all as aged and lifeless as the Southern Air Temple they were in.

Aang felt his blood grow cold, his throat grow dry, his heart race, the color fade from his usually vibrant and animated face. It had to be a lie! But it wasn't; and the cold, hard, blatant truth tore him up from the inside out.

What happened after that was a blur of terror, anger, confusion, and loss. It was perhaps in this moment that being the Avatar became real to him. It was more than just a drive to keep himself alive in a compromising situation. It was about what people could do to each other without a guiding hand. He realized this however, only when Katara and Sokka saved him from his state of shock and initiated him into their family with words of comfort and voices of sincerity. Just as he needed a shoulder to cry on, these people, in this time of war and destruction, needed a crutch to lean on.

Aang would be that crutch.

Because the _only_ people he had in the world now were _all_ the people in the world. Their needs were more urgent then those of the people of the past. And though no one knew of his hundred year old blunder, Aang would never run away again.


End file.
